Ida

Ida is a musical about the first female students at the University of Melbourne. It is a celebration of the achievements of women who bravely challenged an institution - and triumphed.

The original pop-musical, The Princess Ida Parlour, was presented in the Guild Theatre in 1994, directed by then Artistic Director Rose Meyers.

Union House Theatre under the the Artistic Direction of Petra Kalive, revisits Ida for a whole new generation. She has commissioned a new score by composer, Ashlee Clapp. Petra wanted the current cast to have a voice in the work, so Ashlee worked with the cast on the new lyrics for the musical.

Ida Presented by Union House Theatre performed in the Guild Theatre 10-20 October 2018.

After Anita Punton’s Princess Ida Parlour, first performed by UHT in 1994.

Oil Babies

“An anguished, polished and unmissable piece of theatre.” Chris Boyd The Australian

“Oil Babies is intimately confronting and leaves you feeling devastatingly exposed. This exhilarating production and its messages will be swirling around my mind for months to come.” – Theatre People

“Kalive’s intellectual curiosity, humour and soul-baring emotion invigorate this production. Covering everything from reproductive rights to human extinction, it’s provocative and searching theatre, smartly designed and performed with an infectious sense of mischief.” – The Age

“Intelligent, gentle, horrific, terrifying, and a work of great love and humanity. Oil Babies is the hit show this winter.” – What Did She Think?

OIL BABIES repositions our lives as one on the precipice of a planet dramatically changing… perhaps even the moment before our own extinction. It weighs up our continued “hope-investment” in procreation against our feelings of helplessness at the state of the planet – and our role in its demise.

Throughout this piece, the body – in particular women’s bodies – are used as a metaphor to explore our world: our need to control it, our desire to want it to look and be a certain way and, ultimately, our lack of respect for it.

Written and directed by Petra Kalive and featuring an all-female cast, OIL BABIES blends lyrical, rapid-fire text with poetic imagery and domestic drama to present a dangerous, pithy and at times darkly comedic work that speaks directly to the concerns we hold now.

Proudly presented by Lab Kelpie and Darebin Arts Speakeasy. First performed at Northcote Town Hall in 2018

WRITER & DIRECTOR PETRA KALIVE

PERFORMERS KALI HULME, JODIE LE VESCONTE, FIONA MACLEOD

MOVEMENT DIRECTOR XANTHE BEESLEY

SET DESIGN ANDREW BAILEY

SOUND DESIGN DARIUS KEDROS

COSTUME DESIGN HARRIET OXLEY

LIGHTING DESIGN LISA MIBUS

PRODUCER ADAM FAWCETT

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR LYALL BROOKS

The script was developed with the support of La Mama’s Explorations Season in 2015 with performers, Xanthe Beesley, Catherine Glavacic and Petra Kalive.

“[An] anguished, polished and unmissable piece of theatre. Oil Babies is one of the most perfectly wrought theatrical miniatures you are likely to encounter.” – The Australian

“The performers provide a hard-hitting tour de force through the delivery of a variety of myths, facts, obsessions and compulsive behaviours aimed at preserving and protecting the environment.” – Stage Whispers

“Thought-provoking parallels are the strength of Kalive’s writing. The female body becomes the small-scale manifestation of the earth’s damage, littered with the same apprehensions, trials and compulsion to ‘fix.” – The Dialog

Hungry Ghosts

When you’re a young queer Chinese-Malaysian Australian, how do you work out where you belong in the world? Criss-crossing between our unnamed protagonist, the disappearance of flight MH370 and an unsolved mystery, Hungry Ghosts offers an unconventional take on the complexities of contemporary life.

“Petra Kalive’s direction is supple and sensitive to the lyrical currents – ripples of outrage and grief, wonder and pensive reflection – that Hungry Ghosts dives into.” CAMERON WOODHEAD, THE AGE

“Hungry Ghosts is a welcome and refreshing addition to Melbourne’s theatre scene. It has that post-colonial abundance of ideas and multiplicity of perspectives that is often lacking from the rigid, dogmatic approach to storytelling we see in the majority of Western theatre. It’s also genuinely representative, in a way that we see all too rarely on our stages. But more than that, it’s fascinating and moving, an intellectually rich piece that also taps a deep emotional vein. MTC should be encouraged to invest further in work like this, and the best way to motivate them is to go see it.” TIM BYRNE - TIME OUT

“Kalive’s direction feels as incisive and as intelligent as the piece itself with clear evidence of collaboration with all credited artistic contributors…Questioning, visually evocative and lingeringly emotional, Hungry Ghosts feels fresh and current and a most worthy piece of programming to reach out intelligently to new audiences as part of MTC’s award-winning Education program” DOUG NIGHT - AUSTRALIAN STAGE

“Hungry Ghosts is also Tong’s biting lament for a homeland that has disappointed, and it brims with anger and heartache. The situations appear hopeless, and although it rumbles with an undercurrent of hope, the characters are stuck, waiting or searching for answers. The play’s sense of limbo fittingly captures Malaysian sentiments of being repeatedly let down by their country. At the conclusion, nothing is resolved, and we go back to the same elliptical questions we began with. For the audience, there is no surfacing for air from the hungry ghosts’ watery abyss. “ Kaylene Tan

Mirror's Edge

Mirror's EdgeA new play by Kim HoDirected & Designed by Petra Kalive

"..the staging is tender and funny and steeped in eloquent symbols. The set sparkles as starlight projected on a shimmering backdrop is mirrored on the wet surface, characters sometimes seen behind the screen , as if they’re beyond the sky. " Vera Poh, MELBOURNE ARTS REVIEW

"The creative use of space gave the intimacy of a black box theatre with the benefit of a spacious background scene for tableaux, which worked well in some beautiful ensemble sequences with the inventive and clear direction of Petra Kalive. " Jai Leeworthy, THEATREPEOPLE

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Sea Lake is dying — a tiny drought-stricken town in the heart of the Mallee. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a busload of Chinese tourists turn up to take photos on the nearby salt lake. When the sun goes down, when the light’s just right, the lake turns to mirrorwater and it’s like you’re walking on sky. Not far behind these unlikely visitors comes Kai, fleeing Melbourne, broken and adrift. As Kai begins to understand this strange new place, its cultures and stories start refracting through one another. With tenderness and humour, Mirror’s Edge explores the complexities of cross-cultural encounters.

"Kalive’s confident direction drives the play forward, and performances are excellent throughout...Though it deals with some heavy themes, including loneliness, injury and suicidal ideation, it also demonstrates such themes are universal, whatever language they are spoken in." ARTS HUB, Richard Watts

Lighting Designer - Rachel Burke

Sound Designer - Darius Kedros

Set & Costume Designer - Andrew Bailey

Three young people see each other across a crowded Flagstaff station. They just missed the train. Now they wait. And think. They think about home: Punjab, Delhi, Hyderabad. And about how they just can’t seem to get Melbourne’s rhythm right. And of all the impossible things they must do to stay. And their time is running out.

Developed through MTC CONNECT, and the NEON and Cybec Electric play development programs, this vibrant production puts our city’s contemporary social issues centre stage.

Photos by Jeff Busby

Interview with Petra and Andrew Bailey (Designer) for Melbourne Talam

Interviews with Cast of Melbourne Talam

Melbourne Talam

Taxithi

“I threw a stone behind me and I didn’t look back”

A world premiere, written in Melbourne, produced by fortyfivedownstairs.

Nominated for Green Room Award - Best Director, Petra Kalive (2016)

Nominated for Green Room Award - Best Ensemble (2016)

"A seamless hybrid of story and song, it fuses verbatim theatre with fierce, melancholy rebetika – urban folk music which flourished into a distinctive popular form during the same period the Greek diaspora unfurled itself across the globe. Shards of recollection become sharp vignettes, honed by anguish and passion, freedom and loss....Director Petra Kalive's sensitive direction sweeps you along on complex currents of nostalgia, letting these migrant stories speak for themselves...the most powerful argument for compassion is implied, simply from the richness of the lives represented. It may have special significance to Australians with Greek heritage, but all of us should be edified and entertained by this deeply affecting window into the migrant experience." CAMERON WOODHEAD, THE AGE

The untold stories of women who migrated from Greece to Australia in the 1950s and 60s. Filled with the poignant memories and passionate music of their homeland, these true stories resonate with the strength of the women who made new lives, creating an indelible impression on a faraway country.

Writer and singer Helen Yotis Patterson is joined by Maria Mercedes and Artemis Ioannides.